January 13, 2006
New releases: Jan. 17, 2006
Posted by Stacy Chandler at January 13, 2006 7:28 AMThe new releases of interest next week are, in order: None, nada, zip, zero and, finally, the eagerly anticipated new release from ... zilch. Not many new releases at all, for some reason, and not a single one I could find that's, you know, bitchin'.
So I have nothing to say. Therefore ... I will talk some more about the fascinating subject of my new iPod. Yay!
She has a name now -- a good, solid Japanese name for my good, solid and relatively long-battery-lived Japanese iPod. I shall call her ... Aiko (pronounced AYE-ko). It means "little love." Awww.
"Aiko" beat out Hisa ("long-lasting") and Kumiko ("companion child") and my actual favorite, Rini ("little bunny"). But Rini was rejected on grounds that it's a bit too hard to pronounce. Japanese R's are tricky, see. Hard to explain, but suffice it to say the quirk of its pronunciation is the reason I see signs every day here in Tokyo that say things like "raundry" for laundry and "gorirra" for gorilla. Snicker all you want, but I could live here for 70 years and probably still not be able to say my Japanese R's quite right. So I'll just take the safe route and stick with Aiko -- easy to say no matter how much sake I've had.
Ha. One of the amusing things when I was living in Russia was that the Russian alphabet has no "h" equivalent, so its usually pronounced with a "g".
So, it's Garry Potter, which sounds like a suburban plumber more than a boy wizard. I am easily pleased I guess, but that always made me laugh. Also mirthful: Gamburger. Gamlet. Gitler.
Of course for every one moment of fun I got out of their pronunciation of English, they got 1,000 such laughs from my lame-o attempts at Russki.
Posted by: Amanda at January 13, 2006 7:56 AMHere in Arizona, where many of us speak (and love) Spanish as well as English, there is a sometimes cruel amusement taken in the inability of native Spanish speakers to wrap their tongues around the good ol' "th" sound.
Words like "Thumb","Thunderstorm" and "Thick" become "Tum", "Tundertorm" and "Tick".
With practice, though, they can come around. But to attract a diverse clientele, it would never do to name your place "Thad's Thunderous Throughway".
Posted by: Jim Pipkin at January 13, 2006 5:08 PMI'd love to see a Japanese commercial for Prell shampoo...
Posted by: Mark at January 16, 2006 2:01 AMLast week I finally crossed over from podnot to pod, so I have utmost empathy for the stress of trying to find the perfect name for my iPod. Clever? Cute? Symbolic? Alliterative?
I panicked, when the iTunes registration asked for a name (the only thing I could be sure of was that it would NOT be named "Karen Willenbrecht's iPod"). I settled on "Trumpy," a wildly obscure MST3K reference, but now I'm rethinking.
I'm leaning toward Jensen, which I think is a wonderful name for a girl but which every guy I've ever had a baby-name conversation with despises.
But what if the iPod's not a girl? It's too much pressure!
But Stacy, I love Aiko. Perfect!
Posted by: Karen at January 18, 2006 5:06 PMHi Stacy. Hi Karen! I agree with Jim of Arizona.
I've wittnessed, for the last 27 years, that the words 'Tuesday' and 'Thursday' aad 'thirsty' can be hard for a 'Spanish' speaker too! (Gloria say 'Hola' to all.)
